Such processes and devices are usually used in manufacturing plants manufacturing vendor parts for automobiles, e.g., in the manufacture of ball-and-socket joints. Ball-and-socket joints, as they are used, e.g., for mounting suspension arms in vehicles, have at least one ball-and-socket joint housing, which accommodates a bearing shell, which consists of at least one part and in which a ball pivot is mounted rotatably and tiltably. The ball pivot must be accommodated in the housing or in the bearing shell such that no movement shall be possible in the axial direction of the ball pivot. This is achieved in practice by an oversize of the joint ball diameter compared with the ball pivot opening of the ball-and-socket joint housing.
Utility Model No. DE 296 17 276 U1 (see also U.S. Pat. No. 6,152,641) discloses a ball-and-socket joint which has a housing, which is provided with a cavity and in which a ball is mounted movably in a bearing shell. The bearing shell is made of plastic, which is injected into the ball housing through an opening extending to the cavity.
The drawback encountered in the prior-art process is that the injected plastic and the ball are connected to one another in a nonpositive manner due to shrinkage via a press/shrink fit, so that the freedom of movement of the ball pivot and of the ball in relation to the sliding shell and the housing is compromised and leads to excessively high moments of friction. In addition, it is difficult to introduce lubricants into the mount due to the uncontrolled shrinking-on. Furthermore, an undesired gap is formed against the housing on the outside of the shell material due to the shrinkage. Solutions in which the shrinkage behavior shall be controlled by the addition of fibers or by heat treatment show no success.